Ghana’s Defence and Interior Ministers are asking Ghanaians to be vigilante and security conscious in the face of potential terror attacks in Ghana.

National security on Wednesday issued a terror alert warning to Ghanaians to be wary of a “credible” threat of attacks in Ghana.

The alert follows similar attacks in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast which have led to scores of people dying and properties being destroyed.

After a meeting of security chiefs to devise strategies to fight terror in Ghana, the Defence Minister Dr Benjamin Kunbour and Interior Minister Prosper Bani have been vocal in advising Ghanaians on what to do in an event of terror attack in Ghana.

Potential Areas of attacks

Dr Benjamin Kunbour said having studied the pattern of attacks in Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast it has become manifest that the danger zones are not security installations but rather public places including hotels, restaurants, malls and other public places that attract a lot of foreigners.

He said the attackers usually target places where there will be an obstruction from the public which will slow down the rate of response from the security personnel.

With the Easter Festivities in the offing, the Defence Minister hinted that festive occasions may well provide an avenue for the terrorists to attack.

Security measures

The Defence Minister said they are “getting hospitality industry to scale up internal security and make it easier for security to deploy men in times of the attack.”

Dr Benjamin Kunbour was unhappy with the habit of Ghanaians to volunteer all kinds of information to strangers without probing further to find out why those strangers are seeking that information.

“People need to be cautious by not giving out information to strangers. In other places you cannot go asking people to give you information just like that. But in Ghana people can even charter a taxi and take strangers to places or people they are looking for,” he said.

The Interior Minister on his part debunked assertions that the national security alert was hollow and without any information about how the public can react in the face of a terror attack.

Briefing the press, the Interior Minister Prosper Bani said deliberate and specific instructions have been given to hotel and restaurant managers on what to do in the event of an attack.

Joy News’ Kwabena Owusu-Ampratwum reported Prosper Bani as saying the security apparatus have deliberately decided not to put that information in the public domain in order not to give their security strategies away to potential attackers.

Prosper Bani conceded it would be difficult to prevent any such attacks but entreated Ghanaians to report suspicious characters to the police as a way of averting such attacks.